How to Run a Crown Qualifications

By Corpora, kingdoms have crown qualifications every six months. Most corporas lend no extra information beyond that. The rest is handed down by traditions. Here is an outline of running crown qualifications as I have done. It is by no means an absolute, it is merely the traditions as I know them.

Qualifications are divided into two main catagories, cultural events and war events. Both of these are run as individual tournies. Emerald Hills runs kingdom qualifications as a 2 day event, at a regular Saturday and Sunday park. The events should be run so that any constestant can qualifiy in a single day.

Cultural Tourney: The cultural tourney requires quite a bit of planning. You will need at least 3 judges, preferably more. Ideal is to have enough judges that you can drop the lowest and highest score, but this is very rarely practical. Each contestant should get a number to help things remain anonymous. You will need a sign in sheet for each contestant. A master list of names and numbers, taken from the contestant sheets, also helps things go smoothly. You will also need tags and stickers to mark each entry with contestant number and entry number (ex. contestant 8, entry #3 would tag their 8-3). Mark off areas for each catagory's entries to be placed; this is easily done with bed sheets and index cards when tables aren't availible(all armor construction on one sheet, court garb on another, etc.). You may want to have at least one person to help you herd people in the right direction. Its also important to keep people from messing with other people's entries, everybody wants to check out the cool stuff and that's usually when stuff gets broken.

Judging:Once you get everybody signed in, its a matter of judging. Each judge will need score sheets. You may want to make a check list, and as each judge fills a judging sheet and turns it in, you can check off that each item has been judged by that specific judge. This way you can make sure that every item gets judges by every judge. These lists can be double checked against the entry forms for a complete list of entries. Once everything has been judged comes grinding out the numbers. The scores will need to be tallied and then ranked by catagory (an example of a final list is our crown quals XXIV results). Rank points can be tallied for placements (3points 1st, 2points 2nd, 1point 3rd) and overall placements can be determined. The catagories listed are what we used this quals, but the populace pretty much decides what they want. A good guidline is if there are more that three entries, you can make a catagory. For example, we often combine singing, storytelling and dance into one catagory called performance. Enough singing and storytelling entries were recieved this year to make a catagory. Basic garenteed catagories should be laid out ahead of time for the benefit of those trying to qualify, and other catagories can be added as needed (we have a brewing catagory every few reigns, and sometimes have separate catagories for 3d art and jewelry). There are some basic entry guidlines that we use, they are as follows; no more that 3 entries per catagory and items that have already recieved awards or placed in a crown qualifications can not be entered again.

War Tourney: This is run like a regular tourney, see How to run a tourney. The main catagories include sword and shield, single short sword, florentine, open class, polearm, single dagger, two man teams and three man teams.. Etra catagories are usually tacked on to give as many events a day as possible, these include, but aren't limited to madu and sword, off hand sword and shield, and double dagger. In addition to the basic tourny field catagories there are a few special catagories.

Archery and Dagger Toss: These are usually run at a station that is attended so that contestants may compete during the course of the day as they have time between other events. A sheild is strapped to a tree about body level and three distances are marked off. Each contestant gets four shots at each of the distances. The first shot is a practice shot and does not add or subtract from rank shots (the contestant may choose to forfeit their practice shot if they wish, but they must say so before they throw/shoot). Hits to the sheild are tallied for a score in each event, the closest distance is worth 1point, middle is worth 2 points and the farthest is worth 3 points. The attendant keeps track of all the contestants throughout quals and turns the results over to the head of the war events.

Weapons Scramble: All availible weapons (owners willing of course) are placed in a pile. The contestants circle the pile about 20ft away, or whatever makes a good size circle. When the reeve yells "lay on" its everybody for themselves. They may use whatever weapons they can get. Last three standing place, according to the final fights. You probably want some extra reeves and a medic for this event, but its a lot of fun.

War ranking: Points are given for placement, just like in the culural tournies.

Qualifying: Qualifying for crown positions (monarch, regent, chammpion) traditionally in the Emerald Hills has required entry in 10 war events (you don't have to win, just fight one round) and 10 cultural events (with an average scoreof 3.0 on a 5.0 scale). Local monarchs and regents usually have fewer requirements. The populace may vote on changing these requirements each reign. Anyone who qualifies is eligible for a Hydra by Corpora.
Note: I believe that most other kingdoms only require 7 war/7 cultural.